Why Is The Narcissist Always On My Mind?

I am sure such comments or similar have been made by you at some point about the narcissist in your life. We have this formidable capability to get into your head and remain there for a long time which evokes bittersweet reactions from you at best and utter miserable frustration at worst. I have written about ever presence previously, namely that ability we have to ensure that you keep thinking about us, even when you have been pushed to one side or if you have sought to go no contact. This insidious form of manipulation is pervasive and very difficult to deal with, but how is it so effective?

Like much of our effectiveness it actually comes down to you. As an empathic individual you are much more susceptible to our method of remaining in your mind which is achieved by encoding. Since you care about others and take an interest in the thoughts, actions and well-being of other people, you have been wired to take on board stimuli from other people in a far more effective manner than others. Take my kind for example. We are so focussed on ourselves and what we need that we are not wired to be especially encoded by what others do. Our minds are nearly impervious to the actions of others. It is as if they are so full of what we do and what we want that there is no room for anything or anyone else. You on the other hand are like a sponge and you soak up the words and actions of others. Combine your susceptibility with our determined application of suggestion through what we say to you and what we do for you then the outcome is a devastating form of encoding which creates powerful and near indelible memories in your mind.

Through our visual encoding of your mind, you create a vivid mental picture and this will be recalled in pin-sharp crikey vision time after time. Every detail of a particular scene will be recalled by you and it is ingrained in your mind deeply through this encoding. The more you recall it, the more it becomes ingrained as if you are wearing a groove in a piece of wood. We make particular use of music (think how often your narcissist used certain tunes to woo you and/or create special moment) to achieve acoustic encoding. Our voice is used in this way as well by the careful selection of key phrases which will resonate with you. You always remember the things that we say because we have encoded them into your mind. Similar encoding occurs in respect of taste and scents as well as tactile encoding. Accordingly this quintet of senses is assailed by all the things that we say and do in order to achieve this encoding. We create powerful memories so that you have no option other than to recall them and with that comes the emotional attachment. You will remember so much of what you have done with us compared to say what you have done with family, friends and colleagues. You will recall more memories, in greater detail and more often when they involved us because of this deliberate encoding.

You might think this was enough in terms of the efficacy of this method of affecting you, but it does not end there. Most narcissists are male and thus it follows that the majority of victims are female. In general terms, women remember events better than men (men have better spatial memories) and therefore you are genetically pre-disposed to remember all those occasions and dates you spent with us in such detail. Females remember pleasant memories in better detail than men, thus this is a further reinforcement of why you can summon up such powerful memories of the golden period and why it hurts you so much. Conversely, in general terms, men remember unpleasant events better than women who tend to recall them in a ‘blurred’ manner. This is why despite the abuse you have suffered the golden period memories tend to triumph. It is not the case with everyone, admittedly, but generally this holds good. Add to this the fact that women’s memories retain more of their potency through the advancement of age than men and you will see why your memories of us are so difficult to shake. Not only do we specifically encode your minds, which are primed to accept this more than other people, your gender also makes you more susceptible to retaining these detailed and vivid memories of the when everything felt wonderful.

These memories are deeply ingrained and very hard to dismiss and remove, even with professional help. Combine this efficacy with the fact we leave you exhausted and broken, it is little wonder you cannot shift us from your minds. Everyone knows how difficult it is to think straight when you are tired. Little wonder then that we always loom large in your mind when you have been exhausted and shattered by our behaviour.

These memories of the golden period are massively powerful and all of the above means that for someone like you, you will often think of them and suffer the emotion that is linked to them .It is a devastating weapon in our armour. Pretty memorable eh?

30 thoughts on “Why Is The Narcissist Always On My Mind?”

Hey, did anybody experience this ESP from first meeting? I would think of him and nearly the next moment my cell would notify me of a text.
What do you call that connection. I still think he thinks about me and I pick up his thought. Naturally I went super, supernova so I sincerely believe I wounded him so badly, the only Hoover I’d ever get would be malign ouch.

I did, Dragonfly2 – or soon after. I began to sense his presence even when he wasn’t there. Once I became him looking at me looking at him. I told him he was ‘my ghost’ and eventually – after three or four tries — I escaped. Months later, I still have moments where I am sure he is thinking of me because I am thinking of him. I do not know why it happens except that the disappearing acts condition us to think about them all the time, so it seems like ESP.

I also went super supernova several times but only really wounded him once inadvertently. My deliberate attempts to insult him had no effect. A hoover might not be malign. Mine never were even when I called him every name under the sun.

SMH
I think most of the time when we wound them, it is inadvertent I think that’s because when we try to hurt them, it’s just too hard to do it with no emotion. But when we just say what seems to us is an obvious truth that disagrees with their self-concept – that wounds them.

Jess, same boat 9 months on. I’m even travelling solo in October as my kind of ‘Eat, pray, love’ therapy to erase this guy! I saw you are 7 months free – amazing! Well done!! I think I’m turning a corner, I’m not hiding my fb anymore, I’m not staying silent anymore! A sign of growth and not caring – yes!
You’re doing great though, fill your life up with love and laughter, banish the soul leeching darkness you will! Stay strong 🙂

Thank you for the support. I’m so happy for you. Enjoy your travels. I’d love to hear about it when you get back. I’ll live vicariously through you.. Laughing and loving over here.

You are brave. When I unblock (I shouldn’t) I feel like I pop up on their recommended friends list instantly. Just a residual touch of paranoia. After seven months I’d like to think I’m done missing him…hormonally induced low moments no doubt. They pass. My poor friend is only three months in and I’d love to tell her that it will get easier soon…🤷🏻‍♀️

Just as I thought my disappointment couldn’t get any bigger… we shared so much music. And even this isn’t special.

I’ve read so much on this site, thank you very much for doing all this work. It’s still very, very hard for me to actually realize I’ve been with a narc, even though I feel like I’m reading everything about him here.

The disappearing. The rage. Having to guess what he is mad about all the time. The lies and empty promises. The constant need for attention. Flips from angry to sweet if only I apologize. Hovering. Ignoring the shit out of me. Making crazy accusations. Asking ME if I’m a psychopath. Telling me I’m not capable of loving. The depressed state of mind I’ve been in for the last 6 months.

And that feeling I had since the beginning… something isn’t completely right.

Fuck!

I miss him like crazy. I miss the sex and him sleeping, holding me tight. But you are saying, there is no way in hell I’ll ever get this to work? Unless I want to loose my mind?

He ruined the music for me long ago – he would play songs that were obviously “meaningful” to him in some context, as he “appeared” to become “emotional”, but when I asked him what this or that song reminded him of, he would shake his head and not answer, or he’d make some vague response like “various things”. There is only one song he dedicated to “us” – Dust to Dust by The Civil Wars. Apt name, but the lyrics don’t match. I made playlists for him on YouTube, but after the first one fell flat – his birthday, a month after I met him – even though I made the playlists, I didn’t gift him with them. Nor the art book I made him for this last Christmas. I knew by then that it was unsalvageable. I’m listening to what makes me happy and using rubberband therapy -wearing a rubber band on my dominant hand and snapping the crap outta myself every time I catch myself thinking of him. Low level behavior mod, but it’s been effective.

It is so difficult to delete my narc from my mind. Daily I think about him. My narc ex-husband I don’t think much. Only when I have to contact him becaue of kids. But second one gave me no closure and just disappeared with no Message and into the thin air. May be busy With his ex or New ones. He was very secretive, thus I cannot trace him either on sosial media.
It is because of no closure – I miss him and think about him. He must have forgot all about me now.

What helped me get forget my ex narc was knowledge about narcs (I realized it was all fake. He was not special. He was a book of a narc). It also helped me to meet new narcs to really forget him. You realize they are all the same and it loses magic.
Good luck. Stay strong. Focus your mind on more productive things

HG, I just read the Final Discard and my above questions were answered.
Sometimes I don’t want him to ever think of me or smear me anymore. Then my ego rears its ugly head and conflict results. His smearing is brutal–and his thoughts of me, if any, would be pornographic.
It’s the illusion I wrestle with. Hard to believe, at this point, I was acting in an unhealthy play.

Is their more written on what empath or circumstances are likely to cause the obsessions? I sent in a question regarding this topic when you were taking submissions but I realize you are only one man. I have 100’s of questions for you…
Consults indeed.

No. That’s actually wrong HG. ( to borrow a narcissists favourite phrase) I take the ‘golden period’ as what it felt like for ME and it felt pretty good. I shall just leave it at that. It was nice; if I was bouncing around on that trampoline on my own, so be it. I still had fun.
What’s on my mind isn’t the narcissist either. That is also me. What chinks left me open to a duplicitous fraud?
What about me was exploitable ? Just how did I get shifted so far off course? He could die tomorrow. I literally wouldn’t care. Where did that complete lack of concern come from? The, ‘i willl hurt you and you will never forget ‘ . Smashing dreams, ego and ‘love ‘ in the most relentless way possible ? That was never part of my make up before.
Wanting to show truth to a liar, always has been. I have been his most perfect match and worst nightmare.
I am on my mind through the lens of being with him.
He isn’t.

HG, I agree with you in principle, but I experienced an exception to this: there were periods where I was so mentally and emotionally stressed that I couldn’t remember things from one day to the next, exacerbated by gaslighting, silence, lies of omission, “deception” or spin. There ARE moments from both the early days and later on when what the narc said still stands out in memory, but in my case, it was only because it SEEMED to answer a question I was wrestling with concerning his behavior or in trying to work out what his REAL feelings were. After coming to grips with the truth – that he was lying if his lips were moving, I was able to disregard what he said (and to large degree what he did) and just let it float by. I don’t expect to ever have closure, and I am quite sure that I will never give him any, either, if he actually wants it (like he did with one particular ex) and isn’t just posturing. I’m not sure if there are many like me, but being able to detach when I did likely saved me from this kind of emotional rumination.

This is amazing -100% spot on..
for me everpresence was intense, and I totally agree that the majority was of my own making. He sowed a seed that I nurtured and grew, which turned in to an ivy that bound my mind to him.
I do not have the golden period memories so I hate to think what I would have done to myself in that instance. ( shudders)

Music he used very effectively, he knew my absolute love of music, he had little work to do to secure me with a shared love of this.

I do a fair bit of driving in the day and it was at these times more then any other that I was in autopilot and having memories of time with him, good and bad. Replay / repeat…

We do so much damage to ourselves after seeds are sewn. It was ever presence that remained with me for the longest period of time, after I was physically free of him… Fortunately I am free of his ever presence now also, but it was a beast, that I believe was the one of the worst and harmful tools he had.